Meta-analysis of mitochondrial T16189C polymorphism for cancer and Type 2 diabetes risk

Whereas many previous studies have revealed that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism T16189C is associated with the risk of cancer and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), there are others that have disputed the same. As a result, clarity on the role of mitochondrial T16189C in these disorders is missing. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association of T16189C polymorphism with the risk of cancer and T2DM development by pooling all case-control studies available. Published studies till November 2017 were searched from PubMed, Google scholar, Google and EMBASE and isolated a total of 36 studies having 44,203 subjects (20,439 cases and 23,764 controls) based on strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. We used the statistical software “R” to calculate the Pooled Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals to evaluate the association of T16189C polymorphism with a possible risk towards cancer and T2DM development. From the meta-analysis, we obtained Pooled Odds Ratios using Random effect model for cancer (OR: 1.20, 95% CI: 0.96–1.49, P = 0.104) and for T2DM (OR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.09–1.36, P = 0.0004). In the subgroup analysis with Random effect model, we found that both Asians and Caucasians were at a statistically significant risk (OR: 1.25, P